Course Description: A practical course in the maintenance of hardware and software on departmental equipment. Each student will assist in system administration activities such as: user account generation, software installation, web site maintenance, workstation cloning, clustering, and backups in a variety of environments including Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

Prerequisites:CSC-1720 or Permission.

Course Materials:

1. Time and patience.

Course Objectives: After successfully completing this course, you will be able to:

1. install and configure software in a multiuser environment.
2. analyze and compare the performance of computer systems.
3. design and price a new server or upgrade an existing server.
4. demonstrate the ability to perform day to day system administration activities such as creating new users, password resets, etc.
5. explore new technologies for future installments of technology with the department.

Course Policy:

1. Attendance: There will also be events that require all student to participate. Also, meetings will be scheduled based on the project each student has agreed to complete. Attendance will be taken during scheduled events or project meetings. If you miss a required meeting, you need to write a formal report to me containing the time and progress you are making on the project.
2. Grades: Your final grade will be determined as follows:

Component	Projects	Event/Activity Participation	Total
Weight	50%	50%	100%

Each Project, event, activity will have a point value from 10 to 100 points. At the end of the activity or event, you will receive the associated point value if you were present. Projects will be graded on correctness and will be awarded a varying number of points depending on level of completion. At the end of the semester, your will receive as follows:

Point Range	180-200	170-180	160-170	150-160	140-150	130-140	120-130	100-120	80-100	60-80	40-60	0-40
Grade	A	A-	B+	B	B-	C+	C	C-	D+	D	D-	F

You must score at least the minimum of a category to be given the associated grade, i.e. an average of 80 is a B- not a C+.

3. Students with Disabilities: Students who require classroom accommodations due to a diagnosed disability must submit the appropriate documentation to Disability Support in the Office of Academic Development, 4th Floor Smith Library. Student’s need for accommodations must be made at the beginning of a course. Accommodations are not retroactive.

Course Topics:

• General System Administraion
• Establishing a AWS cloud machine
• Installing/updating software - apache, mysql, etc
• Establishing a domainname
• Adding users account, reseting passwords, etc
• Securing a machine with an ssl - letsencrypt
• Updating workstations in the computer lab
• How to clone a lab machine
• Establishing/Maintaining a Beowolf Cluster